


Pinch Harmonic

by Paian



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Community: Event Horizons, Episode Related, Episode: s03e10 Forever in a Day, Missing Scene, Multi, Season/Series 03, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 07:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1849453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paian/pseuds/Paian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Sha're reached out through Amaunet's ribbon device, she touched Jack, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pinch Harmonic

**Author's Note:**

> For the Three Sentence Fic challenge at [Event Horizons](http://event-horizons.dreamwidth.org/). (The rules allow for longer fics. :-) ) Community prompt: echo. Also inspired by the FiaD hug icon on the comm [J/D Ficathon](http://jd-ficathon.dreamwidth.org/). (Bit of boosting: They're taking [sign-ups](http://jd-ficathon.dreamwidth.org/23787.html) through the 28th, and hoping to get lots of AO3 writers.)

God, he felt good in that sweater. He felt familiar, warm -- beloved. Jack kept the hug brief and manly, not just for appearance' sake -- it was only Carter there with them, anyway -- but because he was pissed, he wasn't feeling the warm huggies, Daniel's resignation was horseshit, you didn't walk away like this and get a hug of love, you got a hug in spite of, and Jack wasn't a man who gave affection when he wasn't feeling it. But even in that brief embrace, he felt the difference. The difference between grabbing a Daniel in uniform, a Daniel under his protection, a Daniel he worked with, and putting an arm around this Daniel, a civilian Daniel, a Daniel on the road to becoming a stranger. The difference between putting his arm around Daniel, and putting his arm around anyone else.

His body _knew_ Daniel's. The deep, easy pleasure of pulling him close was something he hadn't felt since he was married, and his murmur of parting politeness came out a little hoarse, as if his voice had split in two.

He stepped back. His gaze dipped, a flash absorption of long torso and limbs, and then came up again to meet Daniel's. Daniel looked as if he expected a parting shot, and through that one last graze of glances Jack sent it all to him in a compressed burst: what he knew they knew about each other, even though they couldn't know and would never admit it; the smoky shadow relationship they'd always had all that time they weren't having it; the silky delight of the shared secret, the gentle acceptance of where Daniel's heart lay; the marvel of happiness it had been, and that nothing could change that, even this wrongheaded ending. His eyes stayed on Daniel as he turned, gaze caught on him like a sleeve catching on a nail, then tore away. He walked to the door, Carter on his heels. The airman had closed it behind himself. Jack opened it quietly and walked through.

"It's only a dream," Sha're said. Right next to him on his left, there on the other side of the door. Abydonian robes, dreadlocky headdress. "It's only his dream. The only thing I have the power to give him."

The world was white. The hall was gone, the wall, the door in it. Carter.

" _You're_ only a dream," Sha're said. Abydonian accent, but colloquial English, contractions. Her face was hard; her eyes had a dangerous glitter. This was not the shy girl who folded under Daniel's arm, afraid to speak or shake hands. This was a modern American Sha're. A Sha're of Daniel's invention.

"And yet," he said, "still me," wondering how much time he had left, how he'd navigate this referenceless space.

She cocked her head. "I suppose you are. I didn't know the dream would carry so."

"What happens now?" he asked.

"Now I die," she said, "and so I don't know the answer to that question. I'm sorry." Her dark flash of smile was predatory, not apologetic. "I'd have relished the battle if I'd been given the chance to fight you for him."

So, not Daniel's invention. Not by a long shot. "No contest," he said. Not as consolation, but because it was true.

Her posture softened, but her expression was calculating. "No, in the end I'd have had to compromise." She gave him a frank once-over. "It wouldn't have been so bad, I think."

They both turned at the sound of a battle horn, low and long and eerie, the Jaffa call of mourning for their own imminent deaths.

"You are each other's dream," Sha're said. "I don't have to tell you to believe him, hard though you'll try not to." She kissed him softly on the corner of the mouth, a press of soft cheek, full lips. Tilted her face to whisper in his ear: "Remember this when you wake up."

He let go of the fifty-cal, ears ringing inside a white silence, and turned from the scythed field of Jaffa to track the blur of movement across his seven: Teal'c, running headlong for the tent that Daniel had hared off into. He caught Carter's eye as he came full around and palmed his MP5. The marines would clear the area. He gestured with his head and set off after Teal'c, Carter vectoring over to fall in with him.

A staff discharged inside the tent. No energy blast tore through a wall, so the shot hit a mark; no answering report. He was ten steps ahead in his mind as they approached the opening, estimating targets and calculating angles, administering first aid, half a dozen projections depending on how many guards the tent might hold and who'd been hit and where. Not one of the scenarios matched what they found beyond the gauzy drapes -- Amaunet lying scorched and dead, Daniel curled beside the body with his fingers on Sha're's face, Teal'c on one knee with weapon butted and head bowed -- but Jack felt as if he were watching a gut-wrenching movie he'd already seen.

 _Déjà vu_ , he thought, and heard an echo of himself echoing Daniel saying "Déjà vu"; and letting loose with the M2 must have rattled his brains in his skull, because he could swear he'd also just heard Sha're say good-bye.


End file.
